ZIONISM AND THE DETECTIVE: Imaginary territories in Israeli popular cinema of the 1960s

A Zanger - Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2004 - Taylor & Francis
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2004Taylor & Francis
The films Moishe Ventilator and The Blaumilch Canal are the vehicles for an examination of
the writing of the Israeli territory through the symbolic representation of that space: a map. At
the centre of the plot of both films is a detective who pursues a missing map and, in doing so,
reveals the dialectic between a territory and the writing of this territory, or between homeland
and the “correct” map. All this is at the pivotal period of time in Israel's history just prior to and
following the Six Day War. Using observations on space and power by Foucault, Marin …
The films Moishe Ventilator and The Blaumilch Canal are the vehicles for an examination of the writing of the Israeli territory through the symbolic representation of that space: a map. At the centre of the plot of both films is a detective who pursues a missing map and, in doing so, reveals the dialectic between a territory and the writing of this territory, or between homeland and the “correct” map. All this is at the pivotal period of time in Israel's history just prior to and following the Six Day War. Using observations on space and power by Foucault, Marin, Mitchell, and Aitkin and Zonn, among others, the paper introduces a socio-semiotic and visual analysis of the dialectic between imaginary and symbolic practices of Israeli territory.
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